Southern Section changes criteria for placement in basketball playoffs
HIGH SCHOOLS
Council votes for revision that reflects school enrollment and previous playoff success. It also hears first reading of controversial proposal to separate private schools from public in team playoffs.
The Southern Section Council voted Thursday to revise its boys' and girls' basketball playoffs, abandoning its current system that places teams in divisions based on league strength and switching to a criteria that will use school enrollment and previous playoff success.
At the same meeting of league representatives in Long Beach, debate began on a controversial proposal to separate private and public schools during team playoffs, with leagues informed that a potential legal challenge could force schools to be taxed to pay for legal fees.
The basketball change will create 12 playoff divisions, up from the current 10. Teams will be put into divisions initially based on their enrollment, then moved up or down depending on a system that awards points for success in the playoffs over a previous four-year period. The new format also does away with a rule that required a minimum 12 wins for teams to make the playoffs.
The new format will mean the end of the Division I-AA "super division" that brought together many of the section's basketball powers regardless of enrollment.
Schools from the Mission League, such as North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake and Encino Crespi, that struggled the last two years playing in Division I-AA against big-school powers such as Santa Ana Mater Dei and Compton Dominguez, will likely return to lower divisions.
But the basketball revisions also could produce more championships for private schools. In 2004-05, when divisions were based on enrollment, private schools won seven of 10 boys' titles. In 2006-07, the first year that competitive equity was used, public schools won seven titles. This season, six of the 10 titles were won by public schools.
The proposal to separate private and public schools, submitted by the Orange County-based Century League and set for a vote on April 24, produced strong support from representatives of the Foothill and Channel leagues.
"There's recruiting going on," Saugus Principal Bill Bolde said. "They are bringing leaflets and brochures into our community."
Bolde said the flexibility private schools have in how they spend their money and their willingness to spend increasingly more for athletics have helped create an uneven playing field.
Dave Hess, athletic director at Ventura, said the Channel League continues to struggle with how to deal with Ventura St. Bonaventure, which hasn't lost a league football game in seven years.
